A/N: Alright! This is what I like to think of as a "unique" story. Though it may not seem like it at first, the Winchesters will tie into the story, though not in the way you may think (but much later on!).
Gabriel and the Four Horsemen play huge roles in this story, and along the way, a bunch of other characters who we should have seen more of in the show will make appearances!
This fic is broken up into "Notes" and "Chapters". A Note is like a prologue for the chapter that follows it, and every note and chapter have a specific date and time that help to organize the story.
P.s This does get gory at times as it is sort of a horror story (like supernatural should be!), and strong language will be used later on. Thanks for reading and I hope you stick around for further chapters!
Good luck!
Other P.s: I edited some parts of the chapters from 1-3 just to smooth over awkward writing and make the story line clearer. (As of May 25th. 2014)
Note #1: The Holt Sisters
Date: April 15th, 1871
Location: Munich, Germany
Start Time: 2:04 PM
Rain fell heavy from the grey sky above them, and through its downpour one could not see a foot ahead of themselves. The smell of wet dog was thick in the air as a pair of young girls, known to be blood sisters, ran from a burning building.
"Keep going!" the eldest yelled through the rain. "We can't go back!"
Though her feet ached horribly, the youngest continued to run as fast as she could. Tears pooled in her eyes as she coughed into the sleeve of her oversized fur coat. She only wanted to stop, to relieve the pain in her stomach, and to bring their home back, but her elder sister kept running, so she did as well.
Screams sounded around them as fire spread through the rain and latched onto nearby houses. The pale-faced girls could only watch in horror as house after house was swallowed by flames, and the heat could be felt through the storm around them.
The smaller girl stopped for a moment to rest, but her older sister was there in an instant to keep her moving.
"Don't stop!" she yelled. The smaller girl could only nod weakly as her knees continued to buckle beneath her. Nonetheless she ran as her sister told her to.
An explosion behind the girls sent heat racing up their backs and made the youngest fall forward. A fresh patch of angry red scrapes now littered her fragile shins, and her older sister was by her side once again. Quickly grabbing her sister's hand, the two ran to the side of a crumbling post office in order to hide.
Tears ran down the younger girls face, and neither her or her older sister could tell if they were from pain or mental anguish. To make matters worse, the wall where the two hid provided little cover from the rain.
Today was a day of loss, and the eldest sister turned to face the only sibling she had left. Cupping the little girls bruised face in her hands, she tried to talk some courage into her.
"What is your name?" she shouted over the thundering of the rain.
The smaller girl looked down. A cold fear raced through her body, and that smell of dog and decay kept getting closer. Could her older sister really not smell it?
"Please Maria. We must go!" she shouted back desperately.
"Look me in the eyes! What. Is your name?" the older girl insisted.
"Emma..." she replied in a whisper.
"Emma what?" Maria questioned almost angrily.
"Emma Holt!" the little girl yelled.
"Right! And do you know what that means?" Maria asked as she squeezed her little sister's bright red cheeks.
The smaller girl shook her head. "No! That doesn't matter we need to-"
"It means that you're a Holt silly. It means you're strong… It means we are strong…. Remember what mother said before she-" Maria's breath caught in her throat as she trailed off.
Mother was dead, and they would be too unless she did something. She released her younger sisters grim face from her hands and placed her palms on Emma's shoulders instead. Even then, she could sense that Emma understood hope was lost.
"Its just you and me from now on okay? I'm your big sister and I am going to keep you safe. Just like that time I kept those bees from stinging you. Remember?" Maria spoke softly, though she couldn't keep the authoritative tone out of her voice.
The last thing she wanted was to scare her sister further, but with the dogs getting closer, bravery could be the only thing to save her younger sisters life. Emma sniffled silently before opening her mouth to respond.
"But you're only seven! And we both got stung," she retorted as a long suppressed sob began to wrack her body.
"Yeah well you're six! I'm older and that means I'm the boss so…" Maria's voice trailed off as sounds of booming footsteps resonated nearby.
The Holt sisters froze, and felt their bodies succumb to the numb horror that began to creep up their spines. Sheer terror overcame their every thought and emotion, and as the two came face to face with the mangled and torn head of a hellhound, no words could describe the nearly painful fear that now coursed through them in that moment.
Seeing a hellhound was nothing like either of them had expected. The burns and scars that littered its face seemed fresh, and puss seeped from a particular cut by its mouth - or perhaps the cut was a mouth. But the smell… Rotting carcasses and raw sewage wafted closer as they stood frozen. It felt as though hours were passing in seconds, and in all that time, the tar black pits at the front of the hellhounds skull still watched them hungrily.
Hope was but a distant memory now. Hope, was the thing that gave someone a fighting chance, but what chance do children have against such beasts? Emma was scared into a stiff non-moving stupor, but then, Maria jolted forward towards the hound.
The jaws of the beast opened fast, but before they could snap down around Maria's body, a bright flash blinded them.
Thunder had struck the ground at their feet, and exploded upward. The youngest Emma was sent flying into a building not far from where her and her sister were standing with the hellhound. Hazy pulses of pain ran through her skull as she struggled to open her eyes, and nothing in her body seemed to be working the way it should.
"Maria!" she cried as she forced herself to stand. "Maria!"
There was no response, but to her surprise, the rain seemed to have slowed its decent. The smell of fear mixed with wet dog had also left, but an ominous feeling quickly crushed the relief that the disappearing hound had brought her.
A sudden cutting feeling in Emma's gut made her fall to her knees, and her thin stockings tore against the broken glass and rubble that littered the ground around her. She opened her mouth to scream, to cry, to do anything, but nothing would come out. What was that feeling in her body?
She felt empty inside. It was as if a part of her had been cut out and peeled away, leaving nothing but the bare and shaking shell of a rain-soaked girl in its wake.
A realization made her gasp as she turned her head to look behind her.
Through the pain and cold, the only thing she could focus on was the body of a small girl a small bit away from her.
"Maria?" she whimpered as she edged herself closer. Through the rain the body was a grey blur, but Emma could smell the fading scent of her older sister. She knew now that that was the cutting feeling in her center. Maria had died.
Suddenly, the stench of hellhounds rushed back ten times stronger than before. The angry snarls of the wild beasts cut through the air so loudly it made Emma sick to her stomach.
The little girl now panicked as she crawled franticly on her stomach over jagged brick and glass to get to her sisters unconscious body.
"Maria please. We have to go," she cried.
A pool of blood now formed a wide circle around her sisters body, and its edges slid under Emma's bruised and cut hands. As her hazy vision began to clear, the little girl soon realized that her sister certainly was not going to be okay. She was torn apart.
Her left leg was gone, and what remained of her sisters left arm was badly broken. Her fingers were twisted at odd angles, and most of the skin on her forearms had burned away in the thunder. Though it looked like she was sleeping, Emma had seen that peaceful look before. Her sister was dead, and the sight of her lifeless eyes made vomit rise into her sore throat.
She turned away from her older sister as she tried not to throw up. With the shock of seeing her protector's bloodied body now ebbing away, confusion quickly took its place as she struggled to remember what had happened.
"Maria," she whimpered, and she closed her eyes. Her small hands balling into fists as she set her lips into a firm straight line. She was too afraid to leave her sisters side, but if she didn't, then maybe she too would be torn apart by thunder.
Her feet weren't working the way she wanted them too, but the decision to move came easily once the smell of dog came rushing over her.
She turned, and with each agonizing step, the dogs came closer. Her growing panic made a painful lump of fear grow in her chest, and the intense feeling of falling suddenly swarmed her senses.
"I'm scared. Maria please. I'm so scared," she thought to herself as she struggled to fill her lungs with air. Being only six years old, she had already seen the dead bodies of the two people she loved most, and the taste of her own blood left her feeling sick as a cut above her eye continued to bleed.
The girl fell to her knees once more with a painful crack against the uneven cobblestone, and with her small hands now slick with blood, she turned slowly.
But not to see the hellhounds that where going to rip her apart, but to see her sister's oddly peaceful face just once more before she… died.
Surprise shook her as her eyes fell on the spot where her sister lay dead.
Her sister's body was gone… And in its place now stood a man.
"No" She whispered in disbelief. Tears sprang back into her eyes as she desperately tried to appear strong as Maria instructed only moments ago.
The man smiled, fully displaying his blackened teeth and red stained tongue. He was rough looking, and his pale white skin practically shone when compared to the bright red cloak he wore. Hideous scars formed odd patterns across his face, and the delicate black of his hair contrasted his harsh features. But above all else, the most noticeable of the man's features were his piercing green eyes.
Then she saw what was standing on either side of him. A crimson horse with several black eyes and a mane of fire stood to his right, and to the left, a hellhound.
All the breath inside of the small child left her once again. She was so young, how could she outrun it? How could she fight it? All the blood in her body felt frozen, but for some reason, it kept pouring itself all over her coat from the cut over her eye.
Through all of the pain racing through her body, Emma still only cared about one thing. What had happened to her sister's body? Maybe the dark haired man took it… Well he couldn't take it… She would have to be brave, just like Maria was. She would have to fight back no matter how slim the chances of survival were. She new, that from now on, she would be the only one to protect herself from bees.
Emma took a deep and stabilizing breath before getting into a running position. She could practically hear her sister chiding her for not running away, but she was to angry to do as her inner voice said. Allowing herself to cry harder than she had ever cried before, the girl took a running start at the red man.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she screamed and forced her weak legs to move. She continued to run, and run, and run, but for some reason, it felt as though she where running through thick and heavy mud. As her pace slowed, she noticed something else that was out of place. The sound of rain and thunder… it had stopped.
Emma opened her eyes and stopped running. She gasped as she looked around her to find that every drop of rain she could see had suddenly frozen in mid air. They looked crystal clear as they hung motionless all around her. She felt weightless as she lifted her head to look at the red-cloaked man in front of her. She found, to her delight, that he was frozen as well.
Sparing a moment to look around, she found that the people had stopped screaming, smoke had stopped rising, and the fire stopped dancing with the rain. There was no sounds. No scents. No anything. It was as if everything except herself were frozen in time.
The little girl turned her attention back to the red man, his twisted smile still hung awkwardly on his pale and scarred face.
"Please," she said quietly as she stared blankly into his cold green eyes.
"Please, we only-" her words were cut short by a sudden sharp pain in her left eye. Cupping a hand over half of her face, she fell to the ground in agony.
"I hate this. It hurts. This isn't fair," she thought to herself as she stopped struggling against the overwhelming pain.
She turned over from her side in order to lie on her back. Gravel now dug into her shoulder blades, but at this point, she didn't care. For some reason, it felt as though she had all the time in the world to just lay there in the vacuum of silence.
Suddenly, a deep whooshing noise shocked her out of her agonizingly peaceful state, and she fell into what felt like a deep puddle of water.
Gasping for air, the girl kicked for the surface of what she now knew to be a lake. The sound of men and woman chatting loudly flooded her senses, and the smell of freshly baked bread and salted meats overwhelmed her nose.
"H-help!" she screamed. She couldn't swim, and the sudden switch of scenery left her feeling light headed and her bones aching. Someone was suddenly at her side in the water, then another, and then yet another person joined in on the effort to hoist her up and out of the water.
Where had she just gone? How did she even get there? Was this part of the abilities her mother was talking about? No matter what the answer was, Emma Holt now knew the full extent of her gifts.
At the age of six, she had successfully escaped War and his hellhounds. She had seen her sister die, and she promised to become the undoing of the Four Horsemen her mother had talked about.
The little girl frowned faintly at the silent promise she made to herself. Though she was still a child, she new that she could surpass her sister's strength, and live up to her mother's kindness.
As she drifted out of consciousness in the arms of a stranger, Emma thought back to something her sister had once told her.
"Don't be sad if someone leaves you," she had said with a foolish frown etched into her face. "You'll look like a baby, and like mother says, you will see them again."
Time flowed normally once more on the street where Emma once lay. The suspended rain now poured over the blood stained streets, washing away any trace of the Holt sisters fight for survival.
To War, the child he was pursuing had simply vanished in mid stride. He frowned deeply at the sudden turn of events.
"Dumme kleine rote mädchen," he said with a light chuckle. The hellhound at his side snarled as it wildly searched the air for any trace of Emma's scent, but to no avail.
"Silly silly silly little red girl, you'll join your sister soon."